THE SCOTSMAN REVEALS
By David Barnes
BBC Alba will discontinue this season's live TV coverage of Scottish club rugby after Sunday's match between Glasgow Hawks and Currie at Old Anniesland – halfway through the ten-match schedule which was agreed to by the broadcaster and the Scottish Rugby Union in October.
However, Alan Esslemont, head of content for the Gaelic-language channel, said that he views this as nothing more than a temporary, strategic measure, aimed at maximising the programme's appeal when it returns to the screens at the start of next season.

"Rugby has been very successful for us, but we are a new channel with limited resources and having reviewed the situation we have decided that rather than give two sparse offerings we want to come back in autumn and do it really well," he explained.

"Rugby came on to the schedule late this year, and as a small channel it is difficult for us to get the message out there in that situation. We can do a lot more marketing if we know it is coming next season. We didn't have a formal agreement with the SRU, it was always fluid."

An SRU spokesman confirmed that the two organisations were on good terms and that he expected BBC Alba to continue showing Scottish rugby in the future.

Esslemont rejected the suggestion that recent press speculation about an SPL-type split at the top of the club game contributed to BBC Alba's decision to stop covering rugby this season.

"Definitely not, we didn't see that as an issue," he responded. "My understanding of the situation is that we not only have to deal with the SRU, we have to deal with the clubs as well, and I don't see why anything would change that." Esslemont's words seem to be at odds with the downbeat tone of the e-mail sent to the clubs by the SRU yesterday lunch-time, which alluded to negotiations with BBC Alba grinding to a halt and made no mention of the possibility of rugby returning to the screens next season.

The e-mail also suggested that one of the key reasons behind BBC Alba's decision to drop rugby from its schedule was because they were "taken aback and surprised by the reported separation within Scottish Rugby."

It seems that this was nothing more than a heavy-handed effort at bullying some of the more vocal clubs into sticking to the party line in future. One senior club figure last night even voiced his concern that financial considerations could also be a reason for the conflicting spin being put on this news.

The Scottish Rugby Union agreed a £15,000 compensation package for the clubs in October, designed to offset the costs of moving games to Sunday in order to accommodate the broadcasters. It now plans to revise that figure but faces opposition from the clubs on the grounds that they have honoured their side of the bargain.

"I would be disappointed if the SRU recalculated the money due to be paid to the clubs because of something which they say has upset BBC Alba, when I am now being told that this isn't the case," said the club source.

Esslemont stressed that poor viewer ratings were not part of the thought process behind BBC Alba's decision to stop broadcasting rugby,

and also played down the negative effect of disappointing crowd sizes at some of the games televised so far.

This article was posted on 19-Dec-2008, 11:38 by Hugh Barrow.